A Confession of Sorts
by Me Or The Wallpaper
Summary: Perhaps it was all still desperately morbid, but at this moment he was happy. Rated T for blood and a realistic view of the world. KuroFai for those who aren't great fans of mushy romances, written for the Confession of Sorts challenge


Disclaimer: CLAMP, this belongs to. Belongs to Star Wars, this annoying way of speaking.

Warnings: A Kurogane who is perhaps more crazy then most write him, and romance for those who don't like romance.

And I don't warn people that homosexuality will exist in the same way I don't warn people trees exist or that eventually, things will change.

Warriors lifted their second skins when they prepared for battle- beautiful guards, a man made shell stretched over a shoulder. A breastplate to guard the precious heart beating behind one half strong bone and a weak bag of skin. Kurogane remembered it, remembered the preparations of countless battles. He remembered his father dressing for them and the warriors who would proceed in their armored shells, swords a single glinting claw clutched in one hand. Whatever was precious behind them, the enemy before.

At first it had been all about what was behind him.

As a boy he had dreamed of dressing in those war clothes that would stop an arrow at his heart and make his small face shadowed and terrifying….of holding a sword in his hand and being able to stand before his mother and make sure no harm came to her. She would get better, of course, once her son could protect her as well. Once she had time to be healthy, once she didn't have to worry about protecting the town because he would take over that job with his father. Side by side they would fight, would be prepared to die for what they held dear. For mother. For the village.

Then he had lost everything and the dynamics of strength became dim.

The hum of a sword in his hand would be what he needed, and he would remember his father's own dead limb still clutching at it. A sword had to be important then, if even in death that hand had stayed clamped onto the metal. If even as the pain of dying overtook him and there had to have been pain, so much pain… even if the pain of dying had not been able to tear his father from his sword, there had to be some great sacredness to it. If he could master this, he could live. Survive. Become better than all that opposed him, live out those victories that his father should have. He needed no one by his side.

Tomoyo would stand behind him; the last ounce of anything worth protecting in the world, the last drop of pureness and goodness, and he would die for her, he would protect her, and if the act of defending and fighting for was not as innocent and valiant as he had imagined it would be as a child that didn't matter. He had already watched two good lives be wasted and blinked out and if the thought even crossed the mind of anyone to take the last thing he truly held dear, then it would be that person's last thought. The last thing to pass through their damned mind, because all would be darkness as his sword cut through that thought and that brain and ended that life. And it was a life he ended. He felt the cavity of the body through the thrum of the sword, vibrating like the taught string of a musical instrument- he felt everything become empty of all that rested behind a face and saw those eyes before him go dim.

No one else would die because he wasn't strong enough. No one else would live because he wasn't strong enough… he should have seen then that it would become confusing, but in the beginning that wasn't the case.

So it was simple- kill. Kill the threats before they crawl upon the shore; destroy everything that dares approach another era of his destruction. He could still feel the scream in his mouth from when his mother died. It burned there like some rotting thing he could not swallow or spit out. Mostly, he kept his mouth closed. There was too much blood on him anyway, and he did not want it dripping like tears into the corners of his mouth. Each new battle, he would wear that warrior's shell to protect himself. He would walk with death and bring it down upon his enemies, and more than just the strong ones. The weak, those that begged for mercy, all could be swept away by the flash of his sword. He would kill until only blood bathed the world around him in red, and it was **their** red, and not the blood of those behind him.

He did grow displaced though. For Tomoyo, he cleared the world before her of all beings, leaving a path stained with the gore of dead enemies and almost-enemies, beings that had dared to hold more strength than him. He killed all and ate that strength with each person who fell before him- that was the way the game worked, after all. Fight tooth and nail and the last standing is the stronger. Stronger and stronger and stronger he needed to be, and then no one would ever fall again.

But that was what it had become to him. A game. A sick game to keep all he wanted to live breathing and stop the lungs of those who apposed him. It had become so simple, such a simple game- to live or not to live? To breathe or not to breathe? Tomoyo saw the monster in the tightness of that jaw, in the teeth which glowed pale against a dark face spattered with enemies, eyes as red as that substance that dripped from his hand so freely. It seemed as if Kurogane had slit his own wrists in the process. She could never tell anymore which blood was his and which was the enemies, and he smiled a poisonous, monstrous smile as it all fell around him.

And maybe that was why she sent him away.

When she saw him again though, there was no doubt that it was **his** blood that flowed so freely, though by the screams it could have been the man beside him. With those other arms clutched around him it had been hard for an instant to see anything missing at all, but the limb was gone and in its place this pale stranger shook, hands grasping at Kurogane's chest as if to find the fine line of his precious life and hold it steady even as blood pooled around them, blooming like a ghastly rose upon the dew laden grass, a single wound creating one small and silent battlefield, a single scream penetrating it all.

Now, in the end, as Kurogane stands for one final battle he is dressed in each shell of armor but feels his heart singing with the humming sword at his side, feels a wicked grin but feels life building behind it. At his back is Fai this time, but god knows that other man doesn't need any kind of protection.

Now there is a force as strong as his behind him, strength raw and ready for the world, and instead of feeling the need to stand all powerful and alone he feels as if he is finally unstoppable. They are unstoppable, and all weaker then them could stand behind and finally he was not some beast feeding on the dead strength of others. He was a defender and he felt that distant dream to stand beside those he cared for and protect those he cared for, the young pure thoughts of before his tragedy finding their way into the darkest shadows of what was real in life.

"Hey," he says easily, and he does not feel any scream in his mouth anymore. Perhaps it is still desperately morbid, but he is happy. Before this battle where there is such a likely chance everything could go to hell he feels happiness rise in him, perfect and not even bothering to be unfamiliar. "When this is all over," he does not say 'if we both live,' "I'd like you to come back to Nihon. With me."

For a moment there is only shock, though not much of it. The eyebrows raising and the eyes seeking his for a moment, cautious of yet another emotional blow to his life, and then joy floods in a single instant of sweet realization.

Fai smiles his own morbid, real smile, not as large as the other he used to crack into his jaw but not fake, and that's what matters. Two blue eyes meet his, and he does not think at all about those years when he had not really been able to really talk, when he had felt nothing but that scream choking him, and he is not afraid. "If you'll have me, I will. I'd like to." Fai says easily, his gaze soft and strong, face pale and dotted with dark blood- contradictions making up every damned confusing part of him, but the words are simple and their meaning clear. Two fingers inside a broken black glove are ready, and bruises and cuts line his face but in that moment Kurogane does see a future, does see a brighter life before him. Even if it's not possible for any of it to come true in the end and both their futures contain only the finale here, this promise is worth enough.

A/N: Anyone remember how I said I had a romantic piece that I was cautious to put up? I'm sorry, but this isn't it. *Cowers * I'm sorry! Things have just been a little hectic; I swear I'll put it up eventually. Anyway, this is a challenge that I made and took part in. It's called the 'A Confession of Sorts' Challenge and you can find out about it and all the rules in the forum "Everything Tsubasa" which is located on this site. The basic rules though are that two characters must confess their love to each other without using the word 'love,' it must be in the most non-OOC way possible, and once someone writes a fic their way of having characters confess is claimed and no one else can use it.

For instance, no one else can now use "Kurogane asking Fai to come back to Nihon with him after all of this is over" or Fai saying, "If you'll have me, I will. I'd like to." Or really any re-wording of that. Also, no one else is aloud to use the final battle as his or her setting.

Review! Really! Please? They just make me so happy! Even if you're Melissa Brite and you say the same thing in your review to everyone, it still means allot to me that you read enough and cared enough (whether cared how good it was or how bad it was, because I want to hear about it if it's bad) to review.

Hm. Yet again I have a really long author's note. Sorry!


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